In its recent move to improve the travelling experience of the passengers, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has come up with a new facility that will allow passengers to view how the food served to them on trains is prepared. The website has developed a live streaming mechanism to help passengers watch the food being prepared and packed on trains.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had suggested the move during a recent review meeting. As per a statement by the IRCTC, Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani on Wednesday inaugurated the live streaming of food preparations at base kitchens to IRCTC’s website.
"Live streaming will go a long way in increasing transparency and public confidence in the quality of food cooked at IRCTC-monitored base kitchens. The live streaming can be accessed by anyone on IRCTC's website under the gallery link," it said.
An artificial intelligence tool was launched by the IRCTC prior to this, which used the CCTV footage to detect anomalies in the hygiene level. It further communicated it to the concerned individuals to initiate a regulatory action, the statement said.
Lohani had inspected the food preparation at the IRCTC’s state-of-the-art central kitchen in Noida, earlier on Wednesday. Appreciating the scale of operations at the kitchen, Lohani said that the existence of a dedicated food testing lab is a unique feature of IRCTC's catering operations for the railways.
Such facility is conspicuous by its absence in airline catering sector, he said.
Questions were earlier raised on the quality of food served on trains. In May this year, some passengers on Puri-Howrah Shatabdi Express had fallen ill after consuming the meal that was served on board. Few of them had to be hospitalised following complaints of uneasiness and vomiting.
The kitchen serves 10,000 meals a day for 17 Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto trains departing from New Delhi, Hazrat Nizamuddin and Anand Vihar Railway Stations.
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